Transparent aluminum, of course. Really, though, having an actual window on the front of the bridge seems rather handy if the viewscreen goes out. If anything, it's an improvement.

I can't really defend the engineering 'set,' though. It served its purpose in the movie, but the (prohibitively expensive, apparently) concept art for what was originally proposed for engineering was much better.

The blogger in the OP is really off the hinge, though. Abrams' movie had some legitimate flaws, but claiming that it did everything it could to change the characters from the ones the geeks knew and loved is a stretch. I'm about as big a geek as they come, and I had serious reservations before seeing the movie, but I could certainly recognize the characters that I've loved for two decades.

Wrong - there's plenty of middle ground, and plenty of room for people to be critical of the movie or of aspects of it; just look around the forum. Perceived flaws and shortcomings are being pointed out and discussed all the time, and mostly in a perfectly civil and even friendly manner.

As for the blog entry cited in the OP, the main thing I notice about it is that there's nothing it has to say which hasn't already been said dozens of times over; much of the content could have been written even before the movie came out, and some of it isn't about this movie at all (why is he talking about First Contact or Generations, for crying out loud?) It's unfocused, his conclusions aren't all that solid, and as a review, it relies far too much on by-the-numbers sloganeering and one-size-fits-all put-downs. ("Something right out of a Sci-Fi Channel original movie" - yeah, there's an original and scathing critique.) Finally, the date-stamp is telling. Why did he wait until four months after the movie went into general release to post this? Could it be he realized that there just wasn't anything very special about the review?

Which makes me wonder if this blogger can even write a script to save his life.

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Why would that matter either way?

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Because most of these so-called 'fans' think that they can. But instead of shutting up and just doing so, they vent their spleens online everyplace they can-possibly because they know and fear that if they did write one and submit it, it might be rejected (even though they did everything they were supposed to do in order to submit it.)

Thus, articles like this, all of which bring to mind the old saying 'Those who can, do, and those who can't, review'. Or in this case, bitch like babies needing their bottles. As one poster put it, they hate success, and they are also resentful because it wasn't their success, but somebody else's.

I live within 10 miles of one here in Indiana. The High School I attended was within a couple of miles of it. Whenever they blasted through it you could feel a rumble within a few miles that feel like tremors or small earth quakes. Certainly the structure inside the quarry as seen in the film is obviously man made, and just looked just like those of quarries.

Because most of these so-called 'fans' think that they can. But instead of shutting up and just doing so, they vent their spleens online everyplace they can-possibly because they know and fear that if they did write one and submit it, it might be rejected (even though they did everything they were supposed to do in order to submit it.)

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Did the blogger say that he could? The idea that you're not allowed to not like a piece of creative art unless you've tried to create it yourself is mental.

Thus, articles like this, all of which bring to mind the old saying 'Those who can, do, and those who can't, review'. Or in this case, bitch like babies needing their bottles. As one poster put it, they hate success, and they are also resentful because it wasn't their success, but somebody else's.

I don't get arguments like that. Abrams has done exactly what he needed to do: jettison the unworkable aspects of Star Trek (eg, Uhura's useless role, the preachy staleness of TNG), keep the stuff that works beautifully (eg, keeping most of the characters pretty much the same; hanging onto the unique cross between naive idealism and imperialistic arrogance that makes the Federation and Starfleet so popular with us all); and even added a couple intriguing twists (Spock/Uhura, the destruction of Vulcan) to kick the whole story into a higher orbit.

Abrams has succeeded, artistically and financially. Nothing else much matters but I suppose the bitterness fiesta must go on...

They've turned Trek into something sexy, edgy, flawed and totally unfamiliar...they can blame [Abrams] for making it impossible to go back.

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Sexy: Bill Theiss designs were not sexy? Mini-skirts were not sexy?Edgy: It's a relative term but in 1966, one year after the Civil Rights Act passed, there were women and minorities seen in positions of power on the show. For example, we think nothing of seeing Richard Daystrom being black, today. Back then, who knows what some people thought about a black actor playing a brilliant computer scientist?Flawed: The third season is not called the "turd" season by some for nothing. Totally unfamiliar: As opposed to the look of TMP compared to TOS? Or TWOK compared to TMP or TOS?

As far as not being able to go back goes, no. Shatner and Nimoy are nearly octogenarians. Kelley is gone. Doohan is gone. So much of the TNG time period has been used up there's nothing new to go back to.

I'm disturbed by the apparent boiler-plate insults, chiding and belittling many of you have for anyone who dares question the movie. Gives the impression gushing praise is all that's allowed here. [...]

Every time I come into this forum I see few if any new threads. I'd think there'd be tons. Maybe it's this "love it or we'll call you names" mentality that is silencing discussion.

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It's perfectly ok around here not to like the movie. We have several posters here that didn't like the movie, have said so, and then moved on.

The problem was with some people that went over and over and over again writing nothing but pages after pages about how every single thing about the movie was bad, terrible, lazy, unholy and evil.

We are not talking about "meh-it-sucked" criticism. We are talking about "foaming-at-the-mouth-writing-hundred-thousands-words-rants" criticism. It became a little stale after a while. Probably it's not fair to people coming and offering honest-to-God-criticism to get bashed now, but just so you understand where some people are coming.